Never Count The Cost
by Scorpiofreak
Summary: "I'll collect every piece and never count the cost." Moments in Alice's new life as the sixth guardian. A series of one-shots and arches taking place before, after, and maybe even during the events of Winter Wonderland. Ice Tea and Sweet Tooth pairings. Currently NOT taking requests.
1. Serenade Me Not, Please

**AN: I really wasn't sure how to start this story. I have a list of ideas for chapters, but since this is a series of one-shots and arches, I wasn't quite sure which one to use to kick things off. So I decided on this one. It's pretty short, but I thought it was a funny one.**

 **For those of you who don't know what this story is going to be about, this is the description I like to use: Series of one-shots and arches taking place before, after, and maybe even during the events of Winter Wonderland. The story will be similar to the layout of Muppet Hands' story "Snowflakes" and Twisted Skys' "Invisible" story. Two of my favorite ROTG stories. It'll be a piece where each chapter will just contain whatever I fancy writing about at the time, or any requests people submit. Currently NOT taking requests right now, though.**

 _ **RECENTLY RE-EDITED (12/27/16)**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

* * *

Alice pursed her lips in thought as she looked down at the map in her hands for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past five minutes.

 _"She's got a smile that it seems to me_  
 _Reminds me of childhood memories_  
 _Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue skyyyyy."_

She held back a frustrated sigh at the new inconvenience. Her eyes trailed over the map and its barely legible directions that someone, presumably one of North's yetis, had hastily written down for her.

The state of the map itself was questionable, even more so than the directions, with smudges of paint staining the surface that could easily be mistaken for landmasses, rips that could be mistaken as dangerous ice crevices, and specks of glitter that weren't exactly misleading, but still annoying if one were to get it in their eye.

Alice looked up from the useless paper with a scowl and scanned her barren surroundings while adamantly ignoring the enthusiastic show-tunes of her traveling companion. The freezing winds whipped around them, ruffling the skirt of Alice's blue, winter coat dress and the dark strands of hair that escaped her fur-lined hood. Her gloved hands held on tight to each side of the flimsy map as its corners flapped in the wind, threatening to get swept away if she let her grip become too lax.

 _"Now and then when I see her face_  
 _She takes me away to that special place_  
 _And if I stared too long_  
 _I'd probably break down and cryyyyy."_

She felt a vein throb in her forehead as her frustration grew towards their unreadable directions and the annoying, white-haired cockroach testing her patience. The entire situation was just one big mess that showed no signs of straightening itself out, and Alice was finding it more and more difficult to maintain her sanity as time wore on. She wondered why the universe always seemed to transpire against her. Had it not toyed with her enough throughout the years?

Apparently not.

 _"Whoooaaa, whoa, whoa, Sweet child o' mine,_  
 _Whoa, oh, oh, oh, Sweet love of mine!"_

The reindeer standing stationary next to her, huffed out a cloud of hot air through its snout. It stomped its massive hooves against the snow-covered ground, showing that it was getting uncomfortable standing still for so long, especially as they drew closer to their deadline. It was pulling a sleigh, fully stocked with important workshop supplies such as craft wood, tools, sewing material and crates of miscellaneous toy parts.

Alice patted its flank in comfort without looking up from the map as she tried to figure out exactly where they were and where they needed to go. They were currently a few hundred miles off from the North Pole, traveling with a pair of yetis in the middle of a snowstorm. It wasn't a blizzard. The visibility was still decent enough to navigate through, but Alice didn't doubt it would turn into one a few hours down the road. She hoped to be back inside Santoff Claussen by then. While her companion had ample experience in the area, Alice wasn't quite as dexterous at battling the weather, especially on its own turf.

Not to mention how time-sensitive their situation was. Before they had embarked on their arduous journey, North couldn't have made his point clearer on how imperative it was that they return with the workshop supplies as soon as possible.

Due to a large shipping mix-up with incoming supplies, the workshop was running low on some of its most essential toy-making material and there wouldn't be a new shipment coming in until a week before Christmas, which was far too soon to make up for a setback of this magnitude. That final shipment before Christmas was intended as excess material that was to be put aside for any last minute touch-ups and then moved into storage until the Yetis were ready to open up shop again in February.

However, the workshop was out of just about everything by the time someone finally caught the mistake, putting both the workers and North in a difficult position. Healthy toy production decreased as their supplies continued to run low at alarming rates.

Short on snowglobes and time, North employed the help of the other guardians. He sent them to scour the globe and collect the supplies they needed to restock the workshop so the yetis could finish making the children's toys in time for Christmas, which was only three weeks away.

Bunnymund claimed it couldn't be done, being his usual grumpy self, while the others reluctantly found themselves agreeing. Three weeks might seem like more than enough time to collect a few crates of supplies, especially with the work divided between them, but time seemed to move four times faster inside North's workshop and Christmas tended to sneak up on its occupants rather spectacularly.

North wouldn't listen to any of it. He dismissed their doubts like a bad joke and began assigning jobs. He told Bunny to go back to his warren and gather up all the paint he had leftover from Easter and bring it back to the Workshop. The pooka made a fuss of course, complaining that his homemade egg paint and dye wasn't meant to be used on anything but eggshells, but North promised to replace every can used by Easter next year with a flippant wave of his hand.

Tooth and Sandy were sent to find more wrapping paper for the presents, given permission to raid a few craft stores if they needed to, while Jack and Alice were sent out into the arctic tundra with one of his reindeer and two of his yetis to fetch a sled full of tools and wood. North had given them a map with directions to some random logging field scribbled across it, where they would find the supplies already packed up and ready to go, courtesy of North's "secret" supplier. They found the logging field easily enough, but the directions were written half in English and half in Yetish, making it almost impossible to decipher their path back home.

The snowstorm that rolled in soon after they had obtained the supplies, didn't help make things any easier, either.

 _"She's got eyes of the bluest skies_  
 _As if they thought of rain-"_

Jack was laying atop the mound of supplies, lounging on his back with one arm resting behind his head and the other one holding his staff. He twirled the aged wood between his fingers while the leg he had propped up on his opposite knee, bobbed to the rhythm of the song he was singing. Alice walked just ahead of the reindeer pulling the sleigh, acting as mission navigator while North's yetis flanked either side of the sleigh.

"My eyes are green," she reminded the singing Winter spirit dryly, still without looking up from the map.

He had gestured towards her several times while singing to some unheard tune, obvious that he was singing to her and trying to be cute about it by making a spectacle of himself.

"I'd hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of paaaaiinn," Jack continued without missing a beat.

Alice halted in mid-step once again and turned towards the sleigh with a scowl on her face.

"I'm going to give _you_ more than an ounce if you don't be silent!"

Jack twisted his head to look down from his perch and almost winced when he saw Alice glaring up at him from the ground. She looked ready to murder him.

"Aww, come on, Pleasance. I'm just trying to brighten the mood."

Alice's scowl darkened.

He was being annoying and he knew it.

She suspected that he was trying to punish her for the biting remarks she threw at him earlier when he attempted to help find an alternative route after their designated path had been blocked by a snow-slide. Alice had been insistent that she could find one on her own and told him as much in a none-too-kind tone of voice. Apparently, he had taken it personally, so now he was refusing to help altogether, which Alice wouldn't have a problem with (she could read a map just fine on her own, thank you very much) if only he would do so _silently_.

He hadn't immediately started with the singing. Naturally he started with the usual moaning and complaining. When she had snapped at him again for whining about how bored he was running errands for North (like _she_ didn't have a million other things she'd rather be doing right now, either), it seemed like a good idea at the time to tell him to do something to entertain himself other than snivel like the overgrown child he was. However, she didn't think he was going to start _singing_.

"You need to take this more seriously," she huffed, putting her hands on her hips. "The workshop could be facing devastating setbacks if we don't return with these supplies soon."

"But these are the classics! Everybody loves the classics!" he argued. "Oh wait...except for you. I forgot that you hate everything, especially fun things. You'd rather walk around in the middle of a snowstorm, map-hogging like it's your sole reason for living."

Unimpressed, Alice reached up to slap the pale foot Jack had hanging off the side of the sleigh, but he dodged the swipe, pulling his foot up out of reach before retaliating with a raspberry.

"I should've left you at the Pole!" she snapped, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat and stomping forward to take point again. "North has severely overestimated your value. You are only useful for making snow and ice, and we are obviously in no short supply!"

Jack sat up and watched her go with a frown, realizing that the fight he was trying to pick wasn't going to happen. When the sleigh started to move again underneath him, he twisted his legs together until he was sitting crisscrossed with his arms propped up behind him to support the weight of his torso, his staff resting across his lap.

"Geez, I'm just trying to brighten the atmosphere a little. You said to stop whining and do something else. Music brightens the soul," he reasoned, looking towards one of the yetis and winking. " _This_ guy knows what I'm talking about."

The yeti stood still as a statue, not letting on that he was even aware that Jack had spoken to him.

Alice ignored him as well, going back to her precious map and acting as if the winter spirit was no longer there. Jack's lips pursed in an annoyed pout, aimed at Alice's back. His tight expression mirrored a look that was purely childish. They sat in silence for several minutes while both spirits fumed privately over the other's unreasonable behavior. It went on like that until Alice started to believe Jack had finally given up on whatever game he was trying to play with her. Some long dormant self-preservation instinct must have kicked in at last-

 _"Say you're leavin' on a seven thirty train and that you're headin'_  
 _out to Hollywoooood._  
 _Girl you been givin' me that line so many times it kinda gets like_  
 _feelin' bad looks gooooood."_

Alice let out a frustrated cry, startling the yetis and reindeer walking behind her. She balled up the map in her hands and threw it at the spirit's head, who dodged it with a big, cheeky smile. It sailed over his head and landed on the other side of the sleigh in a pile of snow. The yeti closest to it reached down and picked it up before the wind could claim it.

 _"That kinda lovin'_  
 _Turns a man to a slaaaaaave_  
 _That kinda lovin'_  
 _Sends a man right to his graaaaave..."_

The dark-haired spirit stood practically seething with angry as she tried to get a handle on her temper. Jack continued to sing away while North's yetis eyed Alice warily, but she ignored all of them in favor of counting numbers backwards in her head. It wasn't until she was confident enough to resist the powerful urge to chuck her Vorpal blade at Jack's head that she finally stopped and opened her eyes.

With their only map unable to help them, it was obvious they would have to use their natural sense of direction to find their way home. Between the yetis, Alice and Jack (who frequented this Godforsaken part of the globe more often than any of them, including the indigenous yetis), it shouldn't take them long to find their way back. It was really only a matter of getting Frost to take their situation serious, which would be almost as hard as the journey for supplies itself. She feared that an apology was in her midst.

Alice let out a sigh and reached out to take the discarded map from the yeti, unfolding it as Jack used his staff as a makeshift guitar and strummed away passionately on it.

* * *

 **AN: Short but sweet. Kinda.**

 **There are two songs Jack sings in this chapter. The first one should be one most of you recognize; "Sweet O' Child of Mine" by Guns and Roses. The second is also a classic rock song, but perhaps not as well known as the first. It's "Crazy" by Aerosmith. I have a headcanon where Jack is into classic rock. Has anyone heard Chris Pine sing before? Jesus, he's amazing. I wish he'd do it more often.**

 **You guys should know the drill by now. Make sure to leave a review if you enjoyed the first chapter and I'll make sure to write more. Also, if you find a mistake in the content, let me know and I'll fix it. Thanks!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	2. Chess and Soul Searching

**AN: This was originally a drabble I did on Tumblr a long time ago. Probably almost two years ago when I was barely halfway through Winter Wonderland. The next few chapters of this story will be drabbles from my Tumblr blog, re-edited and revised so anyone who hasn't been following my blog since the beginning can read some of my older material for this crossover.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

* * *

"Jack?"

"Yeah?" The spirit in question replied absently, rubbing his chin in thought as he thought long and hard over his next move. He glanced up briefly at his dark-haired opponent in acknowledgement before looking back down at his icy pawns.

He needed to level the playing field, he thought to himself. Alice had already taken several of his chess pieces and he had only managed to take two of hers. It wouldn't be long before she claimed his queen if he didn't start putting some real consideration behind his moves. This was their third game and Jack had already lost the first two. It would be a serious blow to his ego if he lost all three.

"When you look at your reflection, do you like what you see?"

Used to hearing such allegoric questions from Alice, the winter spirit didn't think much of it as he moved his last knight forward. "Mmm, that depends. Are we talking literally or figuratively? Because if you mean literally then yes, I love what I see."

Alice rolled her eyes at his cocky answer as she moved her bishop and claimed his knight. She held back a smirk as Jack bulked in surprise and cursed her sneaky move.

It wouldn't have been that clever of a move if Jack would only pay closer attention to the pieces around his. That seemed to be one of his more persistent flaws; a short attention span. It was like selective tunnel vision. He usually kept it in check when given an important mission or job, but it only served to hinder him in more simpler tasks; like a friendly game of chess in his ice cave in Antarctica.

Shaking her head, Alice crossed one of her arms over the surface of the ice table while the other arm held up her head, her chin resting in her gloved hand. Her blue, winter coat dress clung heavily to her figure, the white fur lining insulating enough warmth to keep her from freezing to death in the coldest place on planet Earth.

Naturally, Jack appeared perfectly content with the frigid climate of his rarely used domain. He was sitting crisscrossed on top of a chair made entirely of ice with his bare toes wiggling in time with his right hand stroking his chin thoughtfully as he stared at the chess board, mapping out his next move.

His technique was all wrong, Alice mused in slight boredom as she watched him study their pieces with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth and a look of fierce concentration on his pale face.

"Dear lord, you are such a narcissist, Jack Frost."

He gave her one of his best devil-may-care smiles.

"Perhaps I am," He hummed playfully. "But you can't deny that I'm the cutest narcissist you've ever met."

"Do not make assumptions about what I can and cannot do," She huffed. "Visually appealing you may be, but your conceited and obnoxious nature is far too blinding. Your loud mouth completely ruins - are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry, what was that?" Jack asked, looking up from his side of the board. "You lost me at "Jack's so cute, I can never stay mad at him". The rest was just white noise."

She scoffed at him. "You're deplorable."

"And you're adorable," He fired back.

By now, Alice was well accustomed to Jack's flirty taunts and comebacks, but she still had to control herself during these moments so she could maintain her steadfast demeanor. She never knew whether to blush or roll her eyes whenever the immortal teen threw comments like that at her. His carefree was something to be desired, but he never really knew when to quit. Someone had to be the adult in these situations and she certainly couldn't expect the immature winter spirit to step up to that position. It was a wonder how he was even able to dress himself without proper supervision.

"Will you take your turn so I can claim my inevitable victory, you bloody albino."

"Oh no no no, _I'm_ going to be the victor this time, my fair lady," The white-haired boy proclaimed dramatically before he moved one of his rooks across the board. He let out a smug chuckle as he picked up Alice's recently moved bishop and added it to his own pitiful pile. "So, why the weird, interpretive question?"

"It's nothing," She sighed and looked over her remaining pieces, expertly mapping out her next move.

"Oh no," He groaned at her expression. "You're not having one of those "I'm-contemplating-my-place-in-this-world" days, are you?"

One of Alice's slim eyebrows arched and she looked up at him with an unimpressed frown. "It was just a simple question. A question that you have yet to answer."

"Well I'm sorry, when I woke up this morning, I thought I was going to play a lovely game of chess, not take a pop quiz," He responded dully.

That might have sounded more callous than Jack intended it to and he might have felt a little guilty if it wasn't for the fact that he was _really_ trying to focus on the game. He didn't want to seem upset, because he wasn't, but he didn't want to worry about treading on rough waters with Alice, either.

"Alright, forget about it then," Alice snapped as she watched Jack take his turn.

He looked up at his friend and saw the irritated scowl that crawled across her face. She had her arms crossed tightly under her chest and her eyes were trained solely on the board. Despite the red flags that flashed in his head, Jack reached over the short table and grabbed Alice's arm, gently prying it free so he could switch his hold to her hand. She jumped slightly in surprise, but didn't pull away. Jack waited until her green eyes met his before he dared to continue.

"I do like my reflection because it reflects exactly who I am; Jack Frost, Spirit of Winter and Guardian of Fun. I like where I am right now. It's a good place for me. It doesn't matter if I'm looking through some figurative window into my soul, or a carnival funhouse mirror, I will always like the reflection. Especially, if you're standing next to me."

He said that last part with a coy wink and Alice let out another scoff at his answer, her frown remaining unimpressed. Although despite the front, she had to stubbornly keep her eyes averted from his, lest the winter spirit saw the lack of contempt behind her response. He separated their hands after giving hers one last reassuring squeeze and they returned to their own respective sides.

"Must you always end a sentence too late?" She sighed in exasperation before finally meeting his eyes as a show of sincerity. "But thank you for answering my question, Jack."

It was rare for him to hear Alice call him by his first name, but whenever she did, Jack couldn't help but think that he's never heard it sound so sweet before. He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly while moving one of his last few pawn pieces forward across the board. "No problem. I love soul searching over a game of chess. Makes the fun-loving child in me cry even harder."

"I'd hate to make a child sob, but since it can't be avoided, I am _very_ sorry for what I'm about to do."

Jack's eyebrows knotted in confusion. "What?"

Alice didn't answer. Instead, she just smirked victoriously as she picked up one of her knights and moved it forward.

"Checkmate."

"… _Dammit!_ "

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 **AN: Yet another short, cute stand-alone chapter that I hope you guys enjoyed. Sorry for not updating in a while. I'm going to try and stay on top of updating this story. I was just a little wrapped up in my Frozen Fanfic.**

 **Don't forget to review and let me know what you think!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	3. Capture the Flag

**AN: Once I remembered it was Winter Wonderland's third anniversary, I knew I had to post something in celebration, so I wrote up this fun chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

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"This isn't good," North remarked grimly as he watched the scorekeeping yeti mark up a point for Bunny's team.

The guardians were in the middle of an epic game of Capture the Flag with spirit against spirit, Yetis as the scorekeepers and Santoff Claussen as the playing field.

Granted, the workshop wasn't exactly the most ideal of places to hold a rowdy competition such as the one the guardians were currently engaged in, and the yetis had voiced this compliant loudly and angrily, but North had waved them off. It was about mid-January and the workshop had only been reopened a little over a week and a half ago. The majority of machinery hadn't even been turned on again and the usual mountain of presents had yet to become even a mere puddle. There was no danger in deeming the workshop as the goal area. The rest of Santoff Claussen was where most of the gameplay took place anyways since it was an avoidance game and the workshop, though large, was an enclosed area. The workshop was where their makeshift scoreboard had been constructed, fashioned creatively from an old Christmas countdown sign, and also where the players would bring their stolen opponents' flags and deposit them in their team baskets.

The guardians were broken down into two groups of three with North and Bunny as team captains, which only made sense because they were the most determined to prove who was the fastest, most efficient holiday spirit once and for all. The others didn't really care. They were just swept along in the whirlwind that was North and Bunny's neverending feud.

The Christmas spirit immediately called dibs on Tooth and Jack for his team, claiming they would make an unstoppable force, while Sandy and Alice went to Bunny by default. The pooka didn't seem at all put off by the arrangement. He only smirked at North's hasty pick, failing purposely to remind the Russian that while the winter spirit and fairy were both gifted with independent flight and were undeniably fast, Tooth was easily distracted and Jack tended to go rogue during team-based activities.

North let out a huff and placed his hands on his hips, just starting to realize this himself. He pulled his eyes from the scoreboard and looked around the rest of the workshop. It was almost empty, the yetis having refused to work on their toys while the guardians horsed around in the background. There were two yetis up manning the scoreboard, which hung from one of the balconies, while a few others milled about the ground floor.

The Russian looked down at the white strip of fabric that hung around his waist, double checking that all his flags were still intact like he had been doing almost religiously for the past hour. Each player had a game belt around their waists with three flags hanging from it, each the color that matched their team. Bunny's flags were green and North's were red. The pooka was putting up a better fight than North thought he would. Bunny, Alice and Sandy were being surprisingly evasive and no flags, from either team, had been claimed until now. North had been close to the workshop when he heard the score bell finally ring, but was disappointed when he rushed into the area and saw it was Bunny's team who scored the first point.

That wasn't necessarily bad, it was just one point out of nine total, but it wasn't good either. Things were not going as North had planned and he was starting to wonder if Bunny had a little fox in him too, considering how wily he was being. The few elves that littered the area converged around their boss, pulling on his pants to get his attention. He ignored them, bringing up a hand to stroke his beard in thought as he tried to think of a new game plan since his current one wasn't working. Apparently "see a flag, take the flag" was a little too broad.

"North!" Tooth's voice suddenly echoed from down the hallway behind him.

Startled, he turned and looked. "Tooth?"

He squinted through the dimly lit hallway and spotted two specks all the way at the other end, steadily growing bigger in size.

"North! Stop him! He has one of my flags!"

Before North could brace himself, a grey blur whizzed past him with unbelievable speed, nicking the large man's shoulder and causing him to spin with the force and lose his balance. The elves underfoot quickly scattered, avoiding their falling boss like a timbering oak tree. He let out a pained grunt as he fell backwards and landed heavily on his backside.

" _Moi deti_ ," He groaned, clutching at his head as the room spun behind his eyes.

The grey blur continued to push itself into the workshop, hopping from surface to surface until it made it to the third floor in record time. Tooth appeared next to a still fallen North, huffing and puffing with exertion while holding a hand to her heaving chest. She watched as Bunny flawlessly scaled the side of the workshop before looking down at North on the floor.

"Oh North, you let Bunny take one of yours too!"

The Russian looked up at the colorful fairy in confusion before looking down at his belt and realizing that one of his flags was missing. Now he only had two. His frown deepened and he let out a curse in Russian as Tooth let out a disappointed huff. They looked briefly at each other before looking back towards the hallway when they felt a sudden cold draft sweep over them. Seconds later, another blur came shooting out of the hallway and into the workshop, this time of stark white and blue.

"Did you get him! Did you get him!" Jack cried as he came to a skidding halt next to the fallen Christmas spirit, kicking up a thin sheet of frost beneath his feet to protect the bare skin from scraping across the stone flooring.

His white mop of hair swished back and forth as he quickly scanned his surroundings with wide, excited eyes. He held his trademark staff in his hands, brandished and glowing, ready to freeze some big, pooka feet to the floor. When he didn't see Bunnymund or his team's stolen flags, he turned towards North and Tooth, just then noticing that North was sitting sprawled on the ground, looking a bit dumbstruck.

"No," Tooth replied mournfully, looking up towards one of the upper balconies where Bunny's score basket was perched on a little pedestal. They all let out a frustrated groan as they watched the pooka drop two of their team's flag inside it.

Bunny hopped down from his team's basket and jumped on to the balcony railing. He looked down at the three spirits on the ground floor with a triumphant smirk. "Ha! Serves you right for callin' dibs, you overconfident gumby! Ever heard of slow and steady wins the race?"

"I thought the hare was supposed to lose in that scenario!" Jack called upwards with one hand cupping the side of his mouth.

"I'm not a hare! I'm a bunny!"

"Like that matters to anyone except you!"

"Whatever, you lot are still losin'!" Bunny laughed, jumping down from the railing and disappearing from view.

Jack let out a snort, waving the pooka off dismissively before turning back towards his teammates. He flopped down next to North on the floor with a sigh and folded his legs. "Well this sucks."

North frowned again, pursing his lips tightly in frustration as he looked up towards the scoreboard again. It was downright humiliating that the pooka had so easily stolen the Russian's flag. "We cannot lose to Bunny!"

"But he's too fast," Tooth gasped out, still trying to catch her breath after her mad dash to stop Bunny from scoring his goal. "And with Sandy springing up obstacles and Alice covering Bunny, we're going to lose badly. They're miles ahead of us!"

"What the heck Tooth?" Jack cried, gesturing to her belt. "You only have one flag left? What happened to the first one?"

"Sandy snuck up on me!" She whined defensively. "He was too sneaky. I didn't even notice it was gone until I heard the bell ringing."

"Ugh!" He threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "What the heck are we supposed to do now? I could handle losing this stupid game to Bunny if it was a close one, but they are dominating us right now! We've been trying to take their flags for hours now and they just stole three of ours in less than ten minutes! This defense approach was just as crappy as the offense one."

"We just need to keep trying. I vote we go on offense again."

"I vote we mutiny against North."

"I vote Jack stops being such a pessimist."

"I vote we break for lunch. I'm hungry."

"Stop it you two," North chided sternly at the bickering spirits before looking back up at the scoreboard, stroking his beard in thought. "I think I have new idea."

~O~

Deep in the bowels of Santoff Claussen, inside the massive boiler room that was almost like a red hot, burning heart beating in the very core of the complex, Alice let out a wistful sigh as she wiped the small beads of moisture that gathered along her forehead with the back of her hand. Several large boilers flanked her on both sides, making her feel claustrophobic and crabby because of the uncomfortable temperature of the chamber.

' _Blasted steam_ ,' She cursed as she tried to ignore the heat and overwhelming smell of wet yeti in the air. ' _Surely there must be more ideal hiding places than this. What does Bunny take me for, a head of cabbage?_ '

Strategically, the boiler room was a rather clever hiding place and she credited Bunny with creativity points for thinking of it. The steam made the air wet and heavy, making it difficult for anyone covered in feathers, or anyone with a lot of muscle mass (or _fat_ , as Bunny calls it), to navigate the chamber. The heat also warded off troublesome winter spirits who wouldn't be able to stand the atmosphere for very long before overheating. However, even for a spirit who didn't have to worry about such things, it was still a colossal pain in the backside to camp out in a giant boiler room just so Bunny could win a ridiculous game.

Sadly though, Bunny was an absolute boar's head when he was being competitive and there simply was no reasoning with him. When they realized North's team was going on offense again, the pooka ordered Sandy to stand guard in the workshop and intercept any opponents from scoring a goal, should they manage to snatch a flag from either Bunny or Alice.

Bunny took off for the reindeer stalls, the last place he would ever want to hide, which was the point because it would also be the last place anyone would look for him, but not before banishing Alice to the boiler room. She walked along the path in front of her, being mindful to avoid any scorching metal and burning coal. She held her blue umbrella shield above her head to protect her scalp from the drops of hot water that dripped down from the patches of condensation gathered along the ceiling. They bounced off the lacy material of her umbrella and fell to the ground.

Alice continued to walk around the boiler room, fighting the deep urge to complain to someone who wasn't there as she wanted for someone, anyone, to score a point and ring the bell so she could finally leave this steam-powered oven. She wasn't walking for very long when she suddenly felt a slight shift in the air, a subtle change in temperature. Normally, a small draft would've gone unnoticed if the room were at a reasonable temperature, but since Alice was strolling through a sauna, the cool breeze that suddenly swept over the warm, pink skin of her arms felt like a slap to the face.

She halted in mid-step and let out another sigh as the steam around her started to crystallize. She rolled her eyes, releasing the handle of her umbrella just as it disappeared from sight in a wisp of blue dust. Her arms fell to her sides and she briefly fingered one of the green flags that hung from the belt around her waist just as she sensed a new presence in the room.

Seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, Alice did a full one-eighty on the heels of her boots and faced the person behind her. She cocked a slim eyebrow in bemusement as she came face to face with an upside-down Jack Frost. He was hanging from his staff with his legs wrapped around it and the crook of it hooked on one of the steel pipes perturbing from the ceiling above. His silvery-white hair stood up straight with gravity working against it, making him look like an albino porcupine. There was a slight pink hue to his cheeks, no doubt from the room's high temperature, but his blue eyes were wide and shining with mischief.

"Hi," He smiled brightly at her. "Smart hiding spot."

"Not smart enough, evidently," She said around another sigh.

He smiled brighter and shook his head. "Hiding in the least expected place so nobody will look there is not exactly The Art of War material. It's more like textbook. You probably would have had more luck hiding somewhere totally obvious, like your bedroom or something."

"Is this some sort of ridiculous ploy to steal one of my flags?" Alice asked with her hands on her hips while Jack continued to hang upside down in front of her like Spider-man.

"Mmhm!" He quipped cheerfully before suddenly reaching out and grabbing the sides of Alice's head. He rocked forward on his staff until he was close enough and dragged his tongue up the side of Alice's face, immediately letting her go and swinging backwards, just barely missing the punch aimed for his temple.

" _Ugh!_ " Alice reared back in disgust, smacking the winter spirit away and holding her arm up to wipe his cold saliva off her cheek. "You despicable, little cockroach! Did you just _lick_ me!?"

Jack laughed devilishly before unwrapping his legs and unhooking his staff. With speed and agility unfair for a winter spirit under such conditions, he snatched a flag from Alice's belt and flew off in the opposite way, back towards the entrance of the boiler room. Alice quickly finished wiping the ice mutt's drool off her face and ran after him, angrily cursing herself for allowing Frost to catch her off guard like that. Her Vorpal blade materialized in her hand as she exited the boiler room and followed the trail of frost that no doubt led straight to the workshop.

Game rules dictated that no weapons were allowed to be used beyond the ones that couldn't fairly be excluded, such as the Sandman's dreamsand and Jack's staff, but the rules be damned. Alice was going to skewer the spirit of winter for pulling such a dirty trick!

It took her no time at all to follow Jack's trail to the workshop, but the scorekeeping yeti had already rung the score bell and North's team was celebrating their first point when she arrived. Bunny was practically foaming at the mouth as he watched North dance around and Jack and Tooth give each other a high-five by their score basket. Sandy was floating up near his own team's basket and Alice barely suppressed a flinch when she saw that he was asleep, which had allowed Jack and North (who had also somehow managed to steal a flag, judging by Bunny's belt) to drop their stolen bounty into their basket.

Fuming, Bunny jumped up into the air and grabbed the Sandman by one of his tiny feet, pulling the sand spirit back down to the ground floor like a wayward balloon.

"Hey! Wake up, beach ball," Bunny snapped, thumping Sandy with the underside of his foot, making him bouncing against the ground.

Sandy startled awake, flailing his arms and blinking his eyes incoherently. He reached up and rubbed his eyes with his hands. When he chased off the last remnants of his impromptu nap, he opened his eyes and looked up to see a very grumpy Bunnymund glaring down at him.

"You fell asleep!" He shouted, pointing up towards North's team. "They scored two points while you were off in dreamland, Mansnoozie!"

Sandy looked between the pooka and the celebrating team above them with a still slightly dazed expression on his face as he slowly put things together. When he realized what had happened, he flinched and flashed his teeth sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders in a ' _whoops_ , _my bad_ ' fashion.

"I suppose that's what we get for making a narcoleptic our goalie," Alice remarked dryly, crossing her arms under her chest.

"Quiet you," Bunny barked before pointing a paw up in North's direction. "This ain't over, tubs! We're still winnin!"

The Russian frowned. One of his hands gripped the side of his belly, jiggling the small bit of fat gathered there, momentarily affronted by the "tubs" remark before brushing it off. He jumped on to the railing of the third floor and looked down at Bunny's team with his hands on his hips and a triumphant smile on his face, expertly mirroring Bunny's own gloating stance from just a short while ago.

"Well, Bunny, as the young ones would say - bring it!"

* * *

 **AN: Haha, that was cute. As I said before I will eventually start pumping out more serious chapters, but for now I'm just enjoying these short, funny ones while I still can.**

 **Hope you enjoyed it. Happy third anniversary Rise of the Guardians and also Winter Wonderland!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	4. Happily Somewhat After

**AN: Another chapter that was originally a Tumblr drabble. This one was dedicated to Theobsessor (cassieisnotapie on Tumblr) because she was my very first beta reader.**

 **Original prompt: _Chwerthin ~ Laughter_ (at Jack's expense)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

* * *

"Now, am I suppose to carry the two before I divide, or after?"

Jack looked up from the Batman comic he was flipping through and turned his head towards Jamie. The Winter Spirit lounged on top of Jamie's small bed with his bare feet hanging off the side while the recently dubbed teenager sat at his desk doing his homework. The two had been like this for almost an hour and a half now and restlessness prickled uncomfortably beneath the fabric of Jack's blue hoodie.

"How am I supposed to know?" he asked with a huff. "You know I'm terrible at math."

"Come on, Jack," Jamie said with a sigh. "I can't go outside and play with you until I finish my homework. You said you would help me!"

Jack sat up from his lazy position and crisscrossed his long legs. "I thought you needed help with English, not math. Don't you have any English or history homework you could do?"

"Nope, just math. We had a sub in English today and my history teacher doesn't assign homework very often, only review packets for unit tests. Come on, just help me so I can go outside before it gets dark."

"Why don't you use your calculator?" Jack asked, pointing at the small rectangular device next to Jamie's laptop with the crook of his staff. "Doesn't that thing basically give you the answers?"

Jamie reached over and picked up the calculator, turning it this way and that in his hands as he looked down at it with uncertainty. He only had ten more problems to do and it was tempting to just put them into the calculator and be done with them. The only thing that kept him from doing it was that they needed to show their work on each problem and his math teacher always double checked when she graded their papers. If the student didn't show how they came to get the answer they put down, then she would mark it as incorrect.

"But the directions said to _not_ use a calculator," he mumbled, biting his lower lip.

Jack caught a glimpse of Jamie's braces peeking through his top lip and had to stifle a chuckle. The metal rims and rubber bands glued to the young boy's teeth made Jamie look really funny, like he had a mouth full of scrap metal, but Jack didn't dare say that out loud. Though Jamie had long since gotten used to having them by now, the boy had been really self-conscious when he first got them put on last summer. He was the first of his friends to get braces and he refused to smile for weeks afterwards, impressively rejecting all of Jack's attempts at making him laugh.

"Who cares what the directions say!" Jack groaned, throwing his arms up in the air. "Rules were meant to be broken! Have I taught you nothing these past few years? You're like the worst at being thirteen years old."

Jamie gave him an unimpressed look. "Well, I'm sorry that we all can't be as wild and spontaneous as you, Jack. It's not like back in your day when all you had to do was count fifty chickens in a row and you were given a degree in advance mathematics."

"I'll have you know young man, that my family herded sheep, not chickens. And it was a lot harder back then because the math teacher had only seven fingers and it made things very confusing," Jack replied with mock indignation, making Jamie laugh. He smiled at the small victory and leaned back against the bed with his arms folded behind his head. "When's the rebellious phase start for kids in this century? I think I might just hang out at the North Pole and come back when you become interesting again."

Jack was all for kids doing their homework. He had no real qualms about it because even he would acknowledge how important education was in modern times no matter how boring it could be at times, but at what expense? Spring was right around the corner and it would only be a matter of time before the weather put Jack out of commission and he would have to migrate North to colder climates until Spring and Summer had passed.

Jamie gave the calculator one last look before ultimately deciding to do the homework on his own. As he put it aside and picked his pencil back up, Jack rolled his eyes. He supposed on some small level he was secretly proud of the boy for not giving into temptation or peer pressure. He just didn't like waiting. Even immortal spirits had places to be and things to do, responsibilities they needed to maintain and Jack was more than willing to go somewhere else to further ignore said responsibilities if Jamie didn't provide adequate entertainment.

After Jamie went back to his math problems, Jack picked up his discarded comic book and resumed his lounging. It wasn't long afterwards that the sound of tiny feet pounding against hardwood floor echoed just outside the boy's bedroom and the door burst open, making both boys jump.

Two little girls came bounding into Jamie's room, chanting Jack's name in excitement. They were a flurry of color and sparkly fabric, both garbed in their matching fairy princess costumes from Halloween. Their homemade fairy wings made from old stockings and smothered in glitter glue, fluttered behind them as they ran around the room whooping and hollering like an army brigade on the march. Sophie and her best friend, Cassie, ran over to the bed and climbed up the side as fast as their short limbs would allow in a desperate attempt to get to the white-haired spirit on top. Jack laughed as the girls threw their tiny bodies into his lap. They demanded hugs and he complied, never one to deny the ladies anything.

"Hey there, lil' munchkins," Jack said as he wrapped his arms around the hyper blonde and brunette as best he could without bending their flimsy costume wings. "What are you fine ladies up to today?"

"We got a question for you, Jack!" Sophie announced loudly, her voice reaching that shrill note that only little girls could reach and dogs could hear. Abbey was probably going nuts somewhere downstairs.

"Yep, a question!" Cassie echoed.

 _'Please don't let it be 'Where do babies come from?' again_ ,' Jack prayed, his eyes trailing up towards the ceiling before looking back down at the girls. He barely dodged that bullet last time. "Okay, shoot."

"Is Alice a princess?" They asked simultaneously.

He blinked at them. "A princess? No, she isn't a princess."

Cassie beamed triumphantly and pointed a finger at her friend. "See! I told you she wasn't a princess! She doesn't have a tiara, princesses always wear tiaras."

"But she's pretty like a princess," Sophie fired back. "And she wears a pretty dress, _and_ she lives in a castle. A real life castle! Jack said so! Didn't you, Jack?"

"Uhhh…" came Jack's genius response. "She does, but she's still not a princess."

It was hard to say if it the Red/Blue Kingdom was actually Alice's castle since it originally belonged to the Red Queen, but at the same time the kingdom was part of Wonderland and Alice owned Wonderland which extended to all domains and territories within it. He wasn't quite sure how all that worked yet. Wonderland as a whole was just an ambiguous grey area that boiled down to a lot of complexities that were left to be desired.

"Actually," Jamie spoke up from his desk. "Technically, Alice is a princess. She's the ruler of Wonderland and she isn't married, so at least by fairytale standards, that makes her a real princess."

Sophie keened with glee while Cassie pouted, but it quickly disappeared when she realized that they knew a real life princess. Jack shot a glare at the boy.

"Please, _don't_ encourage them."

"I'm just saying."

"Shut up and do your homework, brace-face."

The two girls bounced on the bed as they chattered rapidly to each other like a couple of Tooth's mini fairies. Jack had to fight to keep his spot on the bed, nearly being tossed off by all the enthusiastic bouncing until he got a good hold on the headboard behind him. They jumped around his legs and more than once stepped on him. It didn't hurt because they didn't weigh all that much, even when combined, but he still curled his legs closer towards his body so they were out of stomping range of the amateur river dance Sophie and Cassie were doing on Jamie's bed. The winter spirit exchanged a glance with the boy across the room and laughed at his sister's hyperactive behavior. Someone in Sophie's kindergarten class must have had a birthday or something and brought cupcakes to school, causing a sugar rush in both girls. Jamie's mom never allowed Sophie to have sweets so early in the afternoon.

Cassie stopped her bed-to-ceiling bouncing long enough to plop down next to Jack with a breathy giggle and asked, "if Alice got married, would that make her a queen?"

Jack leaned back on the headboard and tucked his arms behind his head, pursing his lips in thought before shrugging. "That's usually how it goes, but I doubt that'll ever happen."

"Why not?" Sophie asked, her green eyes wide and cute with her messy blonde hair flying up around her ears as she continued to bounce on the bed. It was only when Jamie told her stop from where he was still working on his homework, that the little girl finally gave the bed springs a break. She flopped down in a manner similar to her friend and crawled her way up the bed until she was seated next to Cassie. It was a tight fit, having all three of them sitting next to each other like they were. The blonde was practically hanging off the side. Jack did his best to scoot over an inch or two to give her a little more space.

"Because guardians don't get married," he shrugged again, honestly not sure if that was true or not. He knew that none of the guardians were currently married, but that wasn't to say that they weren't allowed to, or that there weren't any marriages within the spirit community as a whole. There were potentially dozens of different answers to Sophie's one question because of those implications alone without the further complication of Alice's personality and general unpleasantness adding to it, so he decided to go with the least confusing one. "And there aren't any princes in Wonderland for her to marry."

"Not every princess has to marry a prince," Sophie said matter-of-factly. "That's not what happened in the movie we saw yesterday at Sarah's house."

"Yeah! Princess Buttercup married a pirate!" Cassie added. "Not that ugly, mean prince she was supposed to marry. He turned out to be the bad guy!"

"Okay, okay," Jack surrendered. "Maybe not all princesses marry a prince, but that's not really the point. Alice isn't going to marry _anyone_."

"Why not?" Sophie asked again.

 _'Because I seriously doubt there's a man on this planet who could survive being married to Alice Liddell,'_ Jack thought bitterly, but said out loud: "I don't know. I guess nobody's ever asked her before."

"Oh, that's sad," Sophie mumbled.

Both girls seemed genuinely saddened by the news as their shoulders slumped and Jack could practically feel their excitement deflate through the fabric of his hoodie. The disappointment that followed only lasted a second before Sophie let out a loud gasp, her face lighting up like the sun once again as a proverbial light bulb appeared above her blonde head. She turned to the Winter spirit.

"Jack! I just had a super great idea! Do you wanna hear it?"

"Why not?" he laughed, humoring the bubbly girl. "Go for it."

She clapped her hands and then pointed a finger at him. " _You_ should marry Alice!"

" _What?"_ Jack choked, losing his grip on the headboard and nearly falling off the side of the bed. From across the room, he could hear Jamie laughing his head off. Cassie agreed with Sophie and they both smiled brightly at him. He straightened back up and stared at the girls with a gaping expression on his pale face. "Wha- that's insane! Where did you get an idea like that?"

"You obviously love her!" Cassie gushed. "You're always together and you're the same age!"

Oh yeah, he forgot how little girls and their logic worked. He was a boy, Alice was a girl, they were the same age (kinda), and whenever the girls saw Jack, Alice was usually with him. So in the minds of six-year-olds, they were compatible enough for marriage.

He spent the next hour trying to convince the girls, with no help from Jamie, that he and Alice were nothing like Flynn and Rapunzel, and that they weren't going to get married, ride off into the sunset and have tons of babies. Nor would they rule over Wonderland together as king and queen (if that ended up being the case, he would gladly welcome a revolution if things went South, which they inevitably would because it was Wonderland). He should have figured the argument was doomed from the get-go, though. A pointless endeavor, really. Their version of Alice and Jack's relationship was much more romantic than the truth, and at the end of the day that's all little girls cared about.

Jack decided to let Sophie and Cassie have their fantasy. He only prayed to the Man in the Moon that they would never bring up the conversation again, especially if it was in front of Alice.

* * *

 **AN: Scorpio Respect Points for anyone who can guess what movie the girls were referring to. And no, not the obvious Tangled reference!  
**

 **Don't forget to review, please!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	5. Burnin' Love

**AN: Thanks for all the reviews last chapter from registered members and anonymous guests alike!** **This is another chapter that was originally a Tumblr drabble. As you can see it's really, really short so I decided to post it much earlier than I originally would with a longer chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it!**

 **Original prompt: Dwylo - Hands**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

* * *

" _Ouch_! What are you trying to do? Rip my skin off?"

Jack looked up at the girl sitting across from him with an accusing glare.

"You said this wouldn't hurt!"

Alice rolled her eyes at his whiny protest as she tightened her grip on his wrist so he couldn't pull it away from her again.

"Well, if you would just sit still and let me continue my work without interruption, then this whole thing would go a lot more smoothly - for the both of us. Do you genuinely believe I'm enjoying this anymore than you are? No, so I'd advise you to sit still and shut up."

She ignored his miserable groan as she looked back down at the Winter Spirit's injured hands. The skin of his palms were almost a cherry red and the mild burns that decorated them looked quite painful, especially against Jack's natural pallor. Alice gingerly poked at the tender skin with the pads of her pointer and middle finger, making note of the pained noises that her ministrations incited from the male spirit. Once satisfied that there wasn't any serious nerve damage, she reached over to the nearby first-aid kit and pulled out a container of aloe, akin to the kind one would use on a bad sunburn after a long day on the beach. She scooped up a generous amount of the gel with her fingers and started spreading it evenly across Jack's hands, taking care to make sure every inch of damaged skin was covered with a thin sheen.

Jack let out a hiss as Alice worked. She glanced up at him briefly before looking back down.

"Stop being so melodramatic," she scolded lightly. "The injury is hardly serious."

"Easy for you to say," he grumbled, trying to ignore that universal itch he had on his face that seemed to spring up during the most inopportune moments in life. "You're not a winter elemental. Heat sucks and it hurts."

"It can't be as bad as all that. The skin is a little tender, but there shouldn't be any blisters," Alice reported as she put the cap back on the aloe.

"A _little_ tender?" Jack gaped at her. "This is like hellfire to me!"

"Funny," she sniffed, brushing off his outburst in favor of packing the aloe neatly back in the first aid kit, "I thought you were tougher than this, Frost."

Deciding not to dignify that with a response, Jack just sat still and watched as Alice pulled out a roll of gauze from the kit. Silence fell over the two as the dark-haired spirit started wrapping Jack's hands with long strips of gauze. He flinched as the dry material brushed against his smarting, sensitive skin. The aloe did a decent job of cooling the worst of his burns and numbing the pain so it was a little more bearable, but the hot sensation of the afflicted areas of his skin kept his body from cooling it further with his naturally low body temperature. He would have to wait longer for the injuries to heal than what his immortal status should have already done because of the contradiction.

That was the last time Jack ever touched anything shaped like a tea kettle in the Mad Hatter's domain.

Seriously, that lever was _hot_.

While Alice focused on her task, Jack let his mind wander. His ice blue eyes roamed aimlessly around the room for several minutes before eventually landing on Alice. Her attention was still on his hands, but every now and again she would reach up and brush back a strand of dark hair behind her ear. He studied every detail of her face as she worked. Her peach skin, the delicate shape of her face, long eyelashes that skimmed her cheeks and carefully applied eye makeup with stunning green eyes underneath, and shapely pink lips. The same color as pink lemonade on a hot summer's day…

Damn hormones. It was a mystery to Jack why spirits like them even still had hormones in the first place. They never helped anything, not like they did humans with their complex and fragile biology. They only hindered in this state. They did nothing but make him do stupid things, like stare at his teammate's face like a creeper. Or try to impress said teammate by doing flashy, foolish, and borderline suicidal stunts. Which never really works to begin with because Alice was a _very_ hard person to impress.

The Winter Spirit was pulled out of his musings by a sharp pang when Alice tightened the bandages around his hand so they were taut enough for her to secure them. He let out a curse and yanked his hand out of Alice's lap. He held the burning appendage against his chest protectively as Alice watched her hard work unravel from his hand and fall to the floor before her very eyes. She let out an indignant huff, promptly putting her hands on her hips.

"Oh honestly!" she snapped. "You are a horrible patient!"

He stuck his tongue out at her like a child.

"Well, you're a horrible nurse, so I guess that makes us even!"

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 **AN: Oh Jack, stop being a bitch! xD**

 **Don't forget to review, please!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	6. Lies Added to the Pile

**AN: Another chapter that was originally posted on my Tumblr. Just some quick background info before you read this chapter. This takes place about ten years after Alice became a spirit and probably a couple of months after she reunited with Bunny.**

 **Original prompt: _Gorweddwel ~ Lie_**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.**

* * *

"Alice! Will you stop for one bleedin' second and just talk to me?"

Alice ignored her friend's pleas as she marched furiously through the entrance tunnel of Bunnymund's warren.

Bunny trailed behind her, sticking close but staying well out of striking distance. He could have easily hopped ahead of the young woman and blocked her path, forcing her to stop and face him directly, but when Alice was in a rage it was best to just stay out of her war path. Much like the rest of her, the tantrums she used to have as a child developed in complexity and doubled in its ability to deliver a brutal wallop to any poor bloke on the receiving end.

"I just want to kno' what happened," Bunny said as he watched her stomp through a cluster of blank Easter eggs.

The eggs quickly scattered away from her boots and ran behind the egg golems standing guard near the entrance, their tiny feet clicking against the stone-paved ground. Bunny clenched his teeth nervously, grinding them together each time an egg narrowly escaped getting stepped on. He didn't blame them for running. Their fragile shells would crack easily beneath the force Alice put into each of her steps and she seemed unconcerned with any sentient poultry that might be caught underfoot.

"I told you what happened," Alice snapped, turning around to face him as she walked. "I don't know what happened to him."

"And you expect me to believe that?" Bunny threw back.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do!" She came to a halt and whipped around to fully face him. "It is the truth!"

Bunny stopped and crossed his arms with a dubious look on his furry mug. He gave Alice a stern glare as he studied her face, trying to weed out any signs of dishonesty that might be lurking in her expression. Her face was empty of all emotions except anger as she matched his glare with a piercing one of her own. Groupings of eggs and egg golems stood on the sidelines of the stone path, witnessing their argument with invisible eyes. Alice was on the verge of telling the nosy lot to sod off. With how personal the subject of her and Bunny's argument was, they made her feel like she was on display. Even after only one decade, she had gotten used to being invisible to most living things and it was more than a little uncomfortable being seen or acknowledged by anyone other than the Easter Bunny.

On his end, fighting was the last thing Bunny wanted to do today, which he suspected was a mutual feeling between them. This was Alice's first time seeing his prized warren and he didn't want it to be a bitter memory for her.

"And I find it very hurtful that you don't believe me," Alice stated as she finally broke Bunny's gaze.

It might have just been him and his pooka paranoia, but Bunny couldn't shake the feeling that Alice wasn't being completely honest with him. He wouldn't go so far as to suspect that she was telling him bold-faced lies, but there easily could have been little white lies peppered throughout her words, or at the very least a big omission of essential facts she believed he didn't need to know. Maybe it was the way she wouldn't look him in the eye for more than a few seconds, or that she had gotten so defensive when he asked her about the man who killed her family. He expected her to get upset, which was perfectly understandable. Not defensive, though.

Normally, defensiveness suggested someone had something to hide, but Alice was just so off-kilter in general now it was hard to tell if that was actually the case, or if she was still naturally argumentative like she had been as a child. Both were plausible.

"I _do_ believe you, Half-pint. I just don't think I'm bein' told the whole story," Bunny said. "I just want to know why he did it and where he is so I can make sure he doesn't get away with it."

She gave a derisive scoff. "And what could _you_ possibly do to ensure that? Nobody believes in the Easter Bunny in the East End of London. Not even the children. It's akin to a black hole of whimsical nonsense and broken dreams with no hope of ever seeing light again. I can hardly see how you'd fair against that."

"Well I have to try somethin'!" Bunny pressed, feeling a little affronted by her doubt. There used to be a time where Alice thought him as something ethereal. Where she thought him so great, he could walk on water. That he knew everything there was to be known. That he had hung the very moon. What ever happened to that little girl who thought the world of him?

' _She burned up in a bloody house fire. That's wha' happened_ ,' he thought bitterly, ' _And this woman standin' in front of me is what sprung from the ashes. A young spirit with powers that rival my own. An' she's right. What could I do for her that she can't already do for herself? Does she even need me anymore?_ '

It has been a little over a month since they reunited and each day Bunny became more and more convinced that it was the other way around, that _he_ needed _her_. Despite her reassurances, a part of him felt that Alice had outgrown him. Had outgrown the mysterious Easter Bunny who she had all but worshiped when she was a child. He had been her sun. The light at the end of the dark tunnel that was her lonely childhood. Now they were on even ground. They were beings of a spiritual nature designed by the same astral entity. And even though Bunny had several centuries on her, there was something about Alice's new status as a spirit that suggested a power of overwhelming proportions and it was only a matter of time before she surpassed even him. And he could tell that, he could feel it. Given enough time, Alice could very well surpass a paramount spirit like the Sandman, and something about that was both awe-inspiring, and frightening.

"There isn't anything to try," Alice said, ignoring the reverent look in Bunny's eyes as she crossed her arms underneath her chest. She wished he wouldn't stare at her like that. Like she was something to be marveled at. It made her feel bigger than she believed she was. "And I already told you why I think he did it. It was a schooling dispute between him and Papa."

He gave her another dubious frown. "Nobody tries to murder an entire family over a _dispute_ , Alice. That's insane."

"Well that's the point, isn't it?" Alice huffed. "Dr. Bumby wasn't exactly an individual I would personally consider mentally stable, Bunny. He may have been better at hiding his disturbed nature than I was, but his true colors were nothing short of monstrous. On top of that, he was an arrogant, self-centered toadie who believed himself more important than he actually was. I'm certain my father saw right through his nonsense and denied him whatever it was he was after. I doubt a greedy sod like him would handle rejection so lightly. He saw it as completely justifiable to burn our house down in retaliation. It obviously wasn't, but you and I both know how dangerous an over-inflated ego can be when someone comes at it with a needle."

"Could ya cut it out with the metaphors?" Bunny asked, exasperated. "I feel like I'm squashed between the pages of some tragic novel every time I talk to ya."

Alice rolled her eyes, unfolding her arms and holding them at her sides. "In any case, my proclamation still stands. I don't know what happened to Bumby after I discovered the truth."

"And yet you keep referrin' to him in the past tense like you do know what happened."

"Don't try to poke holes that aren't there, Bunny," she glared. "You'll get nothing out of it."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Except for a lot of hot air, right?"

"No, except for my bad mood," Alice snapped, turning on her heel and resuming her march towards the entrance of Bunny's Warren, "and my impromptu departure from this ridiculous conversation because I refuse to stand around and let you treat me like I'm a suspect in a criminal inquiry!"

Bunny called out to her, asking her not to leave, but she ignored him and pushed past the egg golems with their faces carved into stone. She was done talking about this with Bunny. She hadn't even wanted to talk about it in the first place. There was no need for it. It has been just over ten years since Alice became a spirit and everyone she used to know as a human now either had one foot in the grave, or was already long gone. Her family was still tucked away in the Liddell family mausoleum in Oxford and their murderer was dead, his innards having been scrubbed off the train tracks of Moorgate Station in London. Not even her family's solicitor, Mr. Radcliffe, was still around, having died of a fatal heart attack not long after Alice went "missing". So there was no point in bringing these things up again. Alice was adamant about leaving the past where it belonged; behind her. It was ancient history as far as she was concerned.

There was nothing left for her in Oxford or in London. The only person who would have been worth going back for was Nan Sharpe, Alice's old nanny. The old ladybird was the only person in London who cared whether Alice lived or died. Who never tried to gain something from her madness. Unfortunately, Nan passed away three or four years ago. She died from an infected stab wound a drunken sailor had given her one night in the Mangled Mermaid. The foolish woman stepped between the sailor and one of the working girls. She had been a young one, no older than sixteen years with no chance of fighting off the violent man on her own. Nanny stepped in on her behalf and received a rusted knife in the gut for her efforts. The local doctor was able to save her from bleeding out, but there was no warding off the inevitable once the nasty infection set in a few days later.

Alice mourned the woman's death when she finally heard the news, but didn't dwell on it. Her nanny once told her that she wasn't afraid of death. That there was no point in anyone being afraid of it. Death came for everybody in the end, as Nanny would say. It didn't necessarily have to be a bad thing if only one was strong enough to accept the simplest fact of life. Death meant she could be with her beloved husband again who she had lost at sea years before Alice was born. Nanny hadn't been philosophical by any means during her lifetime, but she had been wise, and Alice believed her words in that regard.

Even now, when Bunny says she is immortal like him, Alice wasn't entirely convinced. All things had to end eventually and immortality was just a false construct, not at all meaning what everyone thought it meant. The rules of death still applied to beings like her and Bunny. She wouldn't live forever young. She wouldn't live free of death. Immortality just meant her lifeline was extended indefinitely.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry!" Bunny called out to her, falling on all fours and breaking out into a dash through the tunnel entrance. He sped past her and skidded to a stop, holding up both paws to appease her. "I shouldn't have brought this up. Bad place, bad time and I'm a complete dill for not realizin' that sooner. It's just, I've been hangin' on to these questions for so long and I didn't think I'd ever get any answers. An' with you, here with me now - it all still seems unreal. Like I'm havin' a good dream and I'm just tryin' to get some assurance that there really wasn't anythin' I could do to stop what happened before it turns into a nightmare where your ghost is screamin' at me that it was all my fault."

"Please trust me, Bunny," Alice almost pleaded, walking up to him and placing her hands flat on his chest. "Do not let this upset you so. Angus Bumby is _gone_. The only reason I speak of him as if he's a spectre is because he was more than likely hung for his crimes. Like I already told you, it all happened so spontaneously. One day he was running the orphanage same as ordinary and then the next, the constables were placing him behind bars and the solicitor was ordering the shut down of Houndsditch."

"But why did he start the fire, Alice?" Bunny asked, covering her hands with his paws.

Something wasn't right about all this; Alice's story, Bumby's disappearance. It just didn't add up as neatly as Alice was leading him to believe. And he wanted to believe her, so very badly, but he had that foreboding tingling in the tips of his ears. That feeling he would get when he knew something wasn't right.

Alice looked back down at the ground and shook her head. She couldn't successfully lie to Bunny while looking him in the eye, but she couldn't tell him the truth. What would it help? The truth died with Doctor Bumby and she wanted it to stay that way.

"I really don't know," she lied again. "Conflicting interests on a schooling matter is the only reasonable theory I could fathom. He was a dean at Oxford University, the same school that Bumby studied at."

"That can't be the reason-"

"Bunny, please," she cut in, pretending to be exhausted with discussing this topic over and over again as a carefully constructed guise. He was being more persistent about this than she expected him to be. She didn't know how much longer she could keep lying to her _only_ friend. "Everything is alright now. There's no point in dragging this out any further. That horrible man is gone and he won't be able to hurt anyone ever again. Thank you for the concern, Bunny. Everything is alright, though _._ You needn't worry about it. Nothing and nobody, including Bumby, could tear us apart again."

For several moments, Bunny just looked at Alice. He watched as she gave him a reassuring smile, but he also saw how her eyes looked everywhere but his. She started feeling uncomfortable under his gaze and she feared that he was going to call her out on her deception, but when he only let out a long sigh, she knew he was letting the matter go for now.

"I believe you," he said as Alice's eyes finally met his. "Are _you_ alright, though?"

Alice just gave him another smile before wrapping her arms around his torso in a rare hug. Bunny relaxed into her touch and embraced her back. Even if the circumstances surrounding it were more than a little unbelievable, he was happy Alice came back to him in the end.

"As long as I have you, Bunny, I am more than alright."

It hurt to lie to her friend, but there was no other option for her at this point. She had already lost Bunny once before. The flames of the fire had purged all memory, and by extension, all belief she had in him the same night she lost her family. She would do anything to avoid losing him again, even if it required her to be dishonest with him. The truth about Bumby would remain forever buried beneath the many lies he told others, and the ones Alice herself now added to the pile.

* * *

 **AN: This seems like a chapter meant for my Bunny & Alice story, but seeing as how I already have my preferred ending for that story in mind, I decided this would fit better here. As the story synopsis stated, this story will contain chapters that take place after, before, and maybe even during the events of Winter Wonderland.**

 **If you all remember in Winter Wonderland, Bunny had always assumed that Bumby was dead despite Alice saying that she didn't know for sure, but he didn't know how Bumby died or why the doctor started the fire. It was revealed in the third to last chapter of Winter Wonderland that Bunny knew Alice had killed him, which was true, but at this point where this chapter takes place, he hasn't worked that out yet. He suspects it, but he hasn't come to any definite conclusions yet.**

 **Don't forget to review, please!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


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